>"The city is selling its land (in quantity) and talent pool" No the city is not selling land. Where in that article is it stated that Austin is selling Apple

>"The city is selling its land (in quantity) and talent pool" No the city is not selling land. Where in that article is it stated that Austin is selling Apple land? The city isn't "selling" it's talent pool. Companies will always gravitate towards where there's a steady supply of talent. >If Bestbuy sells Microsoft 1000 laptops at a 30% discount" Yeah your analogy is absurd, taxes are a "recurring" revenue stream for a city. It's not at all similar to a single retail transaction. >"You just can't look at a discount and naively equate that" It's not a "discount", there are no goods being sold. Future recurring revenue is being forfeited. And when there's a future budgetary short fall(and there alway is) it will be made up by the individual tax payer.